


Symphony in the Key of War

by osunism



Series: Lightning In A Bottle [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Reaver - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5094443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aja Trevelyan helps her sister, the Inquisitor, through the impregnable fortress that is Adamant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symphony in the Key of War

**Author's Note:**

> Violence. That is all. I was exploring what I think it might be like to be in a Reaver's head during battle.

There is a moment in battle, where pain becomes but a concept upon which new and excruciating suffering is built. It is not unlike the building blocks of math. We perceive only what our mind can comprehend, and then are asked to expound upon that further, creating new possibilities, forging new paths, reaching new conclusions, and always generating more questions. With pain, it is merely a matter of discovering new parts of one’s body that can hurt, beneath the layers of skin, of corded muscle and iron sinew, to the very marrow, the notes of new agonies arise to sing in the blood.

It is that song which drives me, that song which hums at the base of my skull, a single note, growing louder and more insistent with each wound I take that another comrade does not have to. I wrap myself in the sharp garrote wiring of that violent song, and where others flag, I draw strength. It is from that brutalizing chant of notes no human throat can voice, that I draw my fury.

It wells up in my eyes, bloody and beaded like the moon on the horizon, mingling with the salt of my sweat, with the blood of my enemies splattered upon skin and armor. The grip of my battleaxe is wet with gore, and the coppery scent that floods my nostrils only serves to heighten my resolve. I swing, I sing, my voice following the arc of my axe, the artful spray of blood.

My enemies spill their death songs into the air, steaming in the heat of the noonday sun, ravens and other carrion birds circling, eager to feast upon the wake of my composition’s bloody coda.

I am roused for war, and I know the madness scrabbles behind the iron doors of my will, aching to consume me. The dragon’s blood mingles with my own, a fire nothing manmade could ever quench, and Maker, I don’t want it to.

I never want the fire to go out. I never want the song to end.

But if I don’t stop, I’ll kill them all, and none of them can stop me.

She calls me back to myself with a shout, the thunderclap of mana suffusing her voice with power, halting me as I stare with blood-blind eyes at the swathe of destruction I’ve cut. My axe is buried in the skull of someone, and with clinical detachment I dislodge it, no longer horrified that the sound pleases me.

“Aja, what the hell was that?!” She shouts at me. I forget, she has never seen me in battle. She doesn’t know I have taken the ‘dragon madness’ into myself. I smile through the blood staining my face.

“You asked for a clear path to Erimond, sister,” I reply, “and so I have done as you asked.”

I don’t miss the unease in her gaze, a silverite pair to match my own. Nor do I miss the twinge of pleasure her unease gives me.

If I don’t find something to temper the madness soon, she will not be able to call me back to myself again.


End file.
